Part 13

Next, the red mullet. First take a piece of white foolscap paper, and oil it all over, next chop up a tea-spoonful of capers fine, next cut up into slices about three ounces of butter, lay the slices on the paper, sprinkle half the chopped capers on it, pepper and salt it, and lay the mullet on the butter, on its side, put the rest of the butter on the top with the capers and a little more pepper and salt, fold the paper over, and fold the edges over and over, so as to make the foolscap sheet of paper into the shape of those old-fashioned apple turnovers—a fat semi-circle; put this into a tin greased at the bottom to prevent the paper sticking, and put it in the oven. A small mullet will bake in half an hour; a very large one, nearly an hour. Send the fish up to table in its paper. If the butter or some of it has run out into the tin, pour it into the dish on which you place the paper.

Next, the lobster cutlets. These have, of course, been prepared before, and only require making hot in the oven. A lobster has been bought containing coral, which coral has been pounded in a mortar with about the same quantity of butter, and a pinch of cayenne, and some of this has been added to the meat of the lobster, pounded in a mortar with some more butter and some very finely-chopped onion and parsley, a piece of the former about as big as the top of the thumb, and a tea-spoonful of the latter, being the proper quantities; a little ordinary pepper and a tea-spoonful of anchovy sauce have been added, and the mass shaped into little pats about as large as oval picnic biscuits; these have been egged over and covered with very fine bread-crumbs, then fried in hot fat for about a couple of minutes, and a little piece of red claw stuck into each at the finish by way of garnish.

Now these five nice dishes are all ready, and we presume the dishes have also been got ready to put them in. First of all we will take flounders souchet. Pick out the smallest flounders you can, boil them in some water with a little salt, when tender take them out with a slice, keeping the white side uppermost, and place them in a vegetable-dish of boiling water, drop into this water two or three little sprigs of clean double parsley, and serve quickly, handing round the brown bread and butter. Eel souchet can be done in exactly a similar manner. The cook must now have ready two frying-pans, one filled with hot boiling fat, and the other with fresh lard for the whitebait, to which we shall come by and by. We shall now suppose the fish for frying ready on a dish on the dresser, and we will take eels, filleted sole, flounders, whitings, smelts, &c.; now these must be all treated alike, first they must be dried, then floured, then dipped in well-beaten-up egg, then dipped in _fine dry_ bread-crumbs, and then sprinkled over with fine bright golden bread-raspings, in order to insure the colour being right. Suppose the cook has just sent up the flounders souchet; let the next course be fried eels, and salmon and pickle sauce. Take the eels ready prepared and throw them into the boiling fat; if the fat boil, four or five minutes is ample time, if the fat is deep enough to cover the fish. Take a hot vegetable-dish, turn out the salmon and sauce into it, and put on the cover; next take a clean napkin and warm it, and fold it up, and put it on a hot dish; hold a dish-cover to the fire for a minute, and cover over the napkin; take the eels out of the fat and put them for half a minute on to a hot coarse cloth to drain, put them on the clean napkin with a few pieces of green parsley round, and send them up with the salmon. Suppose the next course is turbot, smelts, and red mullet; the turbot, or rather a slice of one, is supposed to be boiling in a saucepan; take it out and put it on a cloth to drain; take first half a dozen smelts and pop them into the fat you have just taken the eels out of; a very short time will cook them. Place the turbot on a fish-napkin, put a piece of parsley on the top of it, and place the fried smelts round the edge. The red mullet simply wants slipping off the tin on to an ordinary dish just as it is, and the next course is done. The lobster cutlets might be sent up with some fried fish instead, as we presume no one would think of having all this fish at one dinner. We therefore now come to the whitebait, and will attempt to describe the secret of having this really delicious and delicate fish well cooked. Of course, in the first place, it is absolutely indispensable, to have the fish perfectly fresh, and in an unbroken state, and it is on this account that whitebait is always had in the greatest perfection at the various hotels which overlook the river where the whitebait is caught. We will suppose, therefore, the whitebait is ready. Now everything depends upon expedition. The whitebait must be first dried and then plunged as speedily as possible into boiling fat. First we will suppose ready on the fire a deep frying-pan full of _boiling_ lard; in order to insure the lard being sufficiently hot, let a drop of water fall into it and see if it hisses; next have ready a wire whitebait-basket, then throw the whitebait into some fine dry flour on a cloth; don’t be afraid of having too much flour, as in these water-side hotels the flour is an inch thick; next shake the whitebait free of the flour in a wide sieve, something like what is used for sifting oats; this is for the purpose of getting rid as much as possible of the flour, to avoid the whitebait being pasty and clammy. Next, having put this floured whitebait into the wire basket, plunge it into the boiling fat—one minute will more than suffice to cook it—throw it on to a hot cloth for a few seconds to drain, and serve it _very_ quickly. Whitebait sent to table properly should burn the mouth with fire-heat. Do not try and cook too many at a time, as they are liable to stick together. Also shake the wire basket a little in cooking them, for the purpose of avoiding this sticking-process; and when they are thrown on to the cloth, if you see one or two sticking together, separate them. Properly cooked whitebait should be crisp, but at the same time slightly soft in the middle, when eaten. There are two kinds of devilled whitebait—black devil and red devil; the former consisting of adding black pepper in the middle of cooking; and the latter, black and cayenne mixed. Have the pepper, whichever is fancied, ready in a pepper-box, lift the whitebait-basket out of the boiling fat, shake it and pepper the whitebait at the same time, put the basket back into the fat for a few seconds, and then turn the whitebait out on to the cloth. It will be found best to send up the whitebait in two dishes, first the ordinary, second the devilled; thin brown bread and butter should be handed round with it, besides some lemon cut into quarters.

It will sometimes be found that with whitebait are mixed a few shrimps or very small eels; these should properly be removed before sending to table, as they have the effect of destroying the appearance.

It may perhaps seem superfluous to add, that whitebait requires no sauce, yet the following conversation actually occurred at North Woolwich, where whitebait are caught and cooked in the greatest perfection:—

_Visitor._—“Waiter, these whitebait are not so nice as they were last time.”

_Waiter._—“Perhaps, ma’am, you would like them better if you did not take anchovy sauce.”

On one occasion some persons demanded melted butter with their whitebait. Whitebait in perfection should be small, but near the end of the season are, of course, far larger and by no means so delicate as in early spring. Waiters are proverbial for presence of mind, and on one occasion, when the whitebait was brought up, about the size of sprats, quietly answered the intended complaint of “Waiter, these whitebait are very large,” by saying—“Yes, sir—very fine, sir.”

The curried shrimps are generally served last of all, and then some meat—generally a roast fowl or duck—but, as a rule, no one eats much of this after all this fish. In a private house it would be better to have a little cold roast beef and salad to finish up with, as in ordinary kitchens a roast duck or fowl would be terribly in the way during cooking the dinner.

XIX.—WEDDING BREAKFASTS.

My chapter on wedding breakfasts must not consist in simply saying, Don’t have one; though I must in the name of common sense enter my protest against the vulgarity—for it is nothing else—of giving one out of proportion to the means of the giver. Where money is no object, of course the simplest plan is to go to some first-rate confectioner’s, and let them supply the breakfast at so much a head. Where, however, economy is a necessity, much can be done with a little good management to avoid waste. I will give an instance of a wedding breakfast that took place during the last six months, and the cost. For it often happens that during the last week before the wedding there is so much to be done at home in the trousseau line that any elaborate cooking in the house is almost impossible. The following bill of fare is one supplied for over sixty persons, at 14s. a head, in February last:—

POTAGES. Printanier. Purée d’Artichauts à la Palestine.

ENTRÉES CHAUDES. Chartreuse de Homard à la Cardinal.

Petites Timbales à la Grande Duchesse. Quenelle de Volaille à la Sefton. Côtelettes de Tortue.

————

Saumon à la Mayonnaise. Dindon aux Truffes. Gelatine de Veau à la Jardiniere. Langues de Bœuf. Pâtés de Faisans à la Française. Jambon, braisé. Poulets rôtis. Faisans rôtis. Anguilles en Gelée à l’Aspic. Petits Pâtés aux Huitres. Pâté de Foie-gras en Aspic. Mayonnaise de Filets de Soles. Salades de Homard.

————

Gâteaux de Fruit à la Richelieu. Fauchonette à la Prince de Galles. Macédoine d’Abricots. Gelées de Citron. Gelées de Marasquin. Crêmes d’Ananas. Petits Choux à la Madère. Chartreuse d’Orange a la Tangier. Gelée à la Dauphine. Meringue à la Suisse. Petites Patisseries à la Bonne-bouche. Meringues à Crême à la Curaçoa. Fruit, &c. &c. Glacés. Boudins à la Princesse Alice Maude.

Now a breakfast like this, including as it does two soups and four hot entrées, cannot as a rule be done in a private house. This of course does not include wine; and when the breakfast is ordered from a pastrycook’s, I would always recommend the wine to be supplied from the home cellar. A first-class cold breakfast from a good pastrycook’s, with soup and ices, will cost about 12s. 6d. a head; and unless the weather be really very hot, soup is always desirable. Without soup and ices, a saving of about 1s. a head can be made.

There are many persons, however, who cannot afford even so much as 10s. a head for a breakfast from the pastrycook’s. When, therefore, the breakfast is made at home, it had better be all cold except the soup; and the great secret of success will be found to be in the old adage—“Never put off till the morrow what can be done to-day.” Have plenty of flowers, and if summer-time, have plenty of ice. Were I to go through a set of dishes, I should simply be repeating what I have already said under the heading of “How to Give a Nice Little Supper.” Fruit, flowers, and ice make the greatest and best show possible for the money. Then, too, a few dishes can be bought which are not easily made at home. Some of those Italian shops where they sell ices have excellent meringues very cheap.

Perhaps the greatest sacrifice of all to that monster, Custom, is the wedding-cake. I suppose there never will be a case of a couple sufficiently strong-minded to forego themselves this luxury, on the ground of “what _would_ people say?” Unless the cake required be very large, it is by no means a difficult thing to make at home, and it can be sent to be baked at the baker’s, who will probably know it only requires a moderate heat, and that the oven should be kept at an even temperature all through the baking-process.

Take first of all some candied peel, orange, lemon, and citron, ½lb. of each, and cut them into small, thin shreds; 1½lb. of flour; 1½lb. of butter; 1lb. of dried cherries, which should be cut up, but not too fine; 1½lb. of currants, which must be thoroughly washed, picked, and afterwards dried; 8oz. of almonds, well pounded; eight eggs; the rind of four oranges rubbed on to sugar; ½oz. of spices, consisting of ground cinnamon, nutmegs, and cloves in equal proportions; about a tea-spoonful of salt, and half a pint of good brandy. The butter should be well worked with a wooden spoon in a large, strong basin, till it has a sort of creamy appearance. The flour, eggs, and sugar should be added slowly, while the spoon must be kept working the whole time. After this has been thoroughly well mixed, the rest of the ingredients mentioned may be added, only a little at a time, to insure the whole quantity being properly mixed up. When this is done, it should be poured into a tin hoop, placed on a metal baking-sheet. Two sheets of well-buttered paper must be placed on the baking-sheet underneath, and the hoop itself must be lined with a double band of well-buttered paper, or else the cake will be sure to burn round the edges.

The cake may now be taken off to the baker’s oven, and as it will keep good for a long time, and in fact improve in flavour by keeping, it should be made some time beforehand. The icing of the cake should not be done till a short time beforehand, as it of course has a tendency to get dirty.

First the almond part—the only part of a wedding cake, to my mind, worth eating.

Take ½lb. of almonds, and having skinned them by throwing them into boiling water, rubbing off the skins and then throwing them into cold water in order that they may not lose their colour, pound them very thoroughly in a mortar with 1lb. of the finest white sugar, add a very little orange-water, and sufficient white of eggs to make it all into a soft paste; but take care not to fall into the common fault of making the paste too soft. This paste may now be spread over the _top_ of the cake, taking care to avoid its getting over the edge as much as possible, and the cake must be placed in a dry place. When the paste is sufficiently hard, the whole may then be iced over with sugar as follows:—Take six whites of eggs, and add to them about 1½lb. of very finely sifted, powdered white sugar. The whitest sugar must be chosen for the purpose. This must be worked well together with a wooden spoon, and a very little lemon-juice now and then dropped in while it is being worked. The mixture should properly have a shiny appearance, and if it is not thick enough it only requires a little more powdered sugar. This must now be put all over the cake to about a quarter of an inch in thickness. Some little skill will be necessary in order to avoid unseemly ridges in the icing on the top of the cake, which when covered must be put in a warm place in order to allow the icing to dry; only be sure to put a piece of paper as soon as possible lightly over the top, as should the dust settle while it is drying, the cake will not have that snow-white appearance it should have.

Little knobs of icing may be arranged round the edge to make the cake more ornamental, and on the day of the wedding a simple wreath of white flowers and green leaves will be found quite sufficient an ornament; in fact, a plain wreath of orange-blossoms, when it can be obtained, looks far better than any more elaborate attempt at ornament.

A wedding-cake is an expensive thing to make at home, but a far more expensive thing to buy. For a highly-ornamented wedding-cake almost fabulous prices are asked; and there is something very satisfactory in having it made at home. A little ingenuity will easily enable any one whose fingers are gifted to make a small round centre ornament with glazed white cardboard, a little silver paper, and orange-blossom. When the cake is large, something raised in the centre is a great set-off to its appearance.

I trust what I have written may be the means of enabling some young couples to start in the world with some extra £20 or £30 in pocket than otherwise; but it is not so much to them that I would speak as to the conscience of the old boy, the bride’s father, that I would address my remarks. You know you are really a little proud of what you think is getting your daughter off your hands respectably. You know, too, that you have never opened so many bottles of champagne in all your life before. You know, too, that many members of your son-in-law’s family will visit your house on this occasion, that will probably never visit it again. Now has that fact anything to do with all this outlay, which you know you can’t afford? Very likely: but then it is really very snobbish. No, paterfamilias, don’t show off, and no one will think a whit the worse of you for it. Pocket your £50, give quite a plain breakfast—no champagne at all—brave the world, and then furnish a room in the new house with the money, and instead of calling it “the breakfast-room,” call it “the wedding-breakfast room.” One word in conclusion. If you _will_ give champagne, give it good, or they will all laugh at you—they will indeed, they will laugh. Young men, bachelor friends of your son-in-law, will say, “Did you taste that fellow’s wine? Wasn’t it awful?”—which will call forth the remark, “Ah, I don’t suppose he had opened many before.” Therefore, whatever you do, give good champagne, or none.

XX.—FOOD FOR INVALIDS.

The sick-room—what echoes does not the very name awaken in the memories of the past! There are few moments in our lives’ history more solemn than those when we have watched by the bedside of one we love, whose life is trembling in the balance, and whose soul and body seem held together by so slight a thread that a breath of wind would part them. What vows have we not vowed, what good resolutions have we not formed, and how chastened have our minds been in these our hours of agony! for of very truth “adversity doth best discover virtue.”

Then—the doctor’s visit. With what an anxious look will the wife, wearied with watching, try and read his eyes as he feels the pulse of the languid patient! what a rush of joy fills her heart, as she sees the doctor smile! for hope is brightest when it dawns from fears. The crisis is past, the patient is pronounced much better, and is ordered some good strong beef-tea. With burning eyes and bursting heart the thankful wife turns away to give the necessary orders, not forgetful, let us trust, of her vows vowed, of her resolutions made, or of the Great Physician who alone can cause the blind to see and the lame to walk.

Like a calm sea to the tempest-tost, like a draught of water after parching thirst, like a bed of down to the wearied traveller, do these sweet hours of convalescence follow after those weary ones of watching, when hope deferred made the heart sick—

“Oh! these were hours, when thrilling joy repaid A long, long course of darkness, doubts, and fears.”

What pleasure, too, to watch the patient take his first cup of beef-tea or his first chop with evident enjoyment, and to see the faint tinge of colour return to the pale cheeks, foretelling of returning health and strength, as surely as the first blush of dawn upon the eastern mountain-tops foretells the coming day!

Again, too, the refreshment taken, the first long sound sleep, nature’s great restorer, how different to watch now, to when the restless patient tossed and turned and muttered, and seemed to suffer more than when awake! There is something very beautiful in a calm and tranquil sleep—

“An infant when it gazes on the light, A child the moment when it drains the breast, * * * * * Feel rapture, but not such true joy are reaping As they who watch o’er what they love while sleeping.

“For there it lies, so tranquil, so beloved, All that it hath of life with us is living, So gentle, stirless, helpless, and unmoved, And all unconscious of the joy ’tis giving.”

But let us leave the convalescent chamber with the watcher and the watched, and descend to the kitchen, and see what we there can do to help on the recovery so happily going on above.

First let us take that probably most valuable of all invalids’ preparations—viz., beef-tea. The quickest and best method of preparing good beef-tea is as follows:—Take a pound of good lean gravy-beef, cut it up into little pieces, pour over them a pint of _cold_ water, and add a little salt. Then take a fork and squeeze these pieces in every direction, in order, as much as possible, to extract the juices out of the pieces of meat. Next place it all—_i.e._, water and meat—in an enamelled saucepan, and place it by the _side_ of the fire, not on the fire, and gradually heat it, taking the greatest care that it does not boil. Having continued this process for about an hour and a half or two hours, during the last half-hour keeping the beef-tea hot without boiling, strain the whole off through a strainer, pressing the meat again with a spoon, so as to squeeze as much as possible all the goodness out of it.

Then remove all the fat. This can be done by carefully skimming it, or, if time will allow, by letting it get cold, when the fat will harden on the top. Now, to my mind good beef-tea is one of the nicest things we can take when ill, but sick persons often tire of it, and loathe it. When this is the case, very often by adding a little sherry, and allowing it to get cold—when, if properly made, it will be a jelly—patients will take it in this form when they could not in the liquid state.

Veal broth and mutton broth are made on exactly the same principles as beef-tea, of course substituting either veal or mutton for the beef, and taking equal care to remove all the fat, and not to let the liquor boil.

Another method of making beef-tea very simply, in a way in which no careful watching is required, is to cut up a pound of gravy-beef as before, and simply put it with a pint of water into a stone jar, and put the jar in the oven; if the oven is not too hot—_i.e._, not hot enough to absolutely make the liquid boil in the jar—this way will be found to be very good. Or the jar may be tied over with a cloth, and placed in a large saucepan of boiling water on the fire, the water in the saucepan to be kept gently simmering.